Airport Express

[Sarah]

I have just moved over from Canada and I am unable to use my iBook on the broadband service in the flat in which I am living. Blueyonder is already set up. The Netgear wireless access point will not send a signal to my Mac, only to the desktop pc that has the signal receiving device. I want to use my Airport Express base station for the Mac and the pc, since it is compatible for both, but when I plug it in and hook it up to the digital tv set top box, it will not work. I have contacted Blueyonder and surprise, surprise, they don't know how to solve it. Can anyone help???

[NHH]

Hi Sarah,

The first of the Mac posts and my... it's a doozy.
This is going to be a long post......

Well.. when you say that you're trying to plug the Airport base station into a set-top box so I assume that you've got Blueyonder's 'Self-Install' kit.

It's quite an open opinion in Blueyonder Tech support as to what you can actually hook-up to the Telewest set-top box, I know coz I used to work there.

Some did think that you can only connect the supplied Netgear access point, nothing else.
I'll leave out the theory behind that but I don't think that would be true any more since BY recently made some major changes to how they handle customer's MAC addresses on their network. But the Self-Install package is quite a different setup to their normal cable-modem service.

Other's... notably some lead technical advisors state that the Telewest set-top box can accept a connection from any device plugged into it and this is the opinion I would go with. With this being the case.......

Try connecting the Airport base station in the following way;

• Disconnect the Netgear Access Point completely and put to one side. (You can leave the Netgear wireless adapter plugged into the PC obviously)
  
• Disconnect the power cable from the Telewest set-top box or switch off at the wall
  
• Power off the Airport base station
  
• Connect the Airport base station's internet port directly to the ethernet port on the back of the set-top box
  (Note: Remember to check if you need to use the X-Over Adapter supplied by Telewest or not. This will be noted above the ethernet port on the set-top box e.g. "XOver Required")
  
• Power on the Airport
  
• Power on the set-top box
  
• Wait for channel 890 to appear on the front of the set-top box

Once that is done you need to check if your Airport has picked up an IP address from the BY network.
Note: You may have to plug the iBook into the Airport Base Station with a LAN cable to do this if the wireless connection isn't already setup.
I assume for the meantime that you're using MacOSX on your iBook so do this in the following way...

• On your Mac's HD, goto /Applications/Utilities and run the Airport Admin Utility
  
• In the Airport Admin Utility click on the Internet tab
  
• The Configure box should show DHCP
  
• If it is connected to Blueyonder the IP Address should begin with 62, 80 or 82, if this is the case then you're connected!
  
• If not, try clicking on the Update button.
  

There are more things you could try but I think that should work for you.

If the set-top box refuses to work through the Airport then you may have to ditch the Airport Base Station and setup the Netgear Access Point again repeating the powering off / powering on procedure as above, then either setup the iBook to connect to the Netgear Access Point using the 'Passphrase/WEP Key' & the 'SSID' noted on the bottom of the Netgear Access Point as you have done with the PC, reply back to me if you need help with this (You should be able to wirelessly connect two computers to the supplied Netgear Access Point but again there have been suggestions that the ones supplied by Telewest are configured to only accept one Wireless connection at a time).....
Or you could just get the PC working as originally setup and use 'Internet Connection Sharing' to share the internet wirelessly from the PC to your iBook.
There is a load of info on sharing internet connections HERE

Lastly Blueyonder's self-install package is only targeted at single PC users so although you should be able to get this working, you may want to consider getting a cable modem installed if you're having many problems.

Let me know how it goes....

[sarahk]

You are a superstar!!!! It worked

[NHH]

Good to hear it.

That'll confirm to some BY technicians that the set-top box will accept any MAC address.

Now back to Doom 3.....